Truth, liberty and an Akubra

Utterly disgusting

If Australia looks like following the lead of Canada any time soon, I'm staying right here in Sri Lanka. (thanks to the Gravett server, amongst others, for the link)

Canadian judges soon will be enforcing Islamic law, or Sharia, in disputes between Muslims, possibly paving the way to one day administering criminal sentences, such as stoning women caught in adultery.

Muslims are required to submit to Sharia in Muslim societies but are excused in nations where they live as a minority under a non-Muslim government.

Canada, however, is preparing for its 1 million-strong Muslim minority to be under the authority of a Sharia system enforced by the Canadian court system, according to the Canadian Law Times.

Cases will be decided by a Muslim arbitrator, but the local secular Canadian court will be the enforcer.

Out!

Simon Crean is toast.

A quick prediction. The press will probably back Latham (ie, News.com.au and the like), however Beazley will get over the line. As I wrote yesterday, people will soon be reminded about Latham's deeply conservative attitudes on a whole range of issues and this will frighten a few of the horses.

The only thing working against Beazley is the fact that he doesn't denounce the "Great Satan" with the vitriol of Latham. Given that Beazley is an unreconstructed tax-and-spender, he will surely prevail.

With regards to the media - if Beazley is running against Howard, the majority of the media will back Howard (Fairfax will hedge, and the ABC will do what they always do - back the Greens). If Latham is the leader of the ALP, then the media will unanimously (news.com, Fairfax, ABC) back Latham over Howard.

The Murdoch Fix is in

A weary traveller, fresh from observing Buddha's tooth-shrine in Kandy, Sri Lanka, renews his interest in the Labor leadership crisis.

Simon Crean's era of no substantial policy direction, coupled with poor personal (as opposed to party) polling with the electorate is about to bring his leadership of the ALP to a close. It has become clear for some time that Crean's leadership of the ALP would never be acceptable to important sectional interests in the community such as the Murdoch press. His lack of charisma and inability to deliver on his "policy not polls" promise during the Beazley leadership challenge have been the necessary signatures on his death warrant.

A SHOWDOWN between Kim Beazley and "new generation" candidate Mark Latham for the Labor leadership is likely next week following Simon Crean's expected resignation as Opposition Leader today.

Labor's crisis began after factional powerbrokers John Faulkner and Martin Ferguson made a surprise visit to Mr Crean's Canberra home on Wednesday night.

The Labor leadership contest will be between two substantial directions in social democratic policy. Those directions are in many ways polar opposite paths. They are:

-A dry, low tax economic policy and neutralist foreign policy under Latham
-A wet, high tax economic policy and firmly western foreign policy under Beazley

The remnants of the Crean bloc will support Latham. However, as the ALP Left now makes up close to 45% of caucus (they are much more powerful than at any time in the last 20 years), they will face a large dilemma. Do they support a liberal economic model as the price for getting a Luvvie foreign policy under Latham? Or do they support a firmly pro-US foreign policy as the price for getting a substantial welfare state and public sector (with lots of jobs for ALP Lefters implied within) under Beazley.

The Left are the important swing vote here as the Right will be fairly evenly divided between Latham and Beazley. The Left will favour Beazley on economics. The Left will favour Latham on foreign affairs. The Left will also remember that there is no difference between Beazley and Latham on issues dear to the heart of luvvies such as refugees. However, Latham has held some deeply conservative, and even Pearsonite, views on indigenous policy and law and order. Will these views and newspaper op-eds written by Latham be aired again to influence the vote? Will the Latham proposal to make welfare recipients pay back their entitlements (which was in "Civilising Global Capital") be a reminder to the Left just what they may be dealing with here?

It is probably fair to say that, as unpalatable as Beazley's national security mentality is to a luvvy, he could easily be rolled by a caucus now used to airing their views on such issues without fear (whether this would still apply close to an election is another thing entirely). Thus he will try to dry out the refugee policy, and he will be rolled. The Left will get what they want on spending, as well as plenty of apologies and statutory commissions under Beazley. They might even roll the Bomber on security issues.

Latham will be much more of a problem, because he comprehensively assaults the prejudices of the Left from virtually every direction. Latham substantially agrees with people like Tony Abbott on the causes of poverty, and is in many ways very socially conservative. He is also the driest economic pointy-head to rise to a position of prominence in the ALP since Peter Walsh (not that this is a bad thing). He will take positions on the usual sops to the Left (Aborigines, crime, welfare), that the Right uses to buy breathing space, that will amount to a declaration of war.

Thus a greater proportion of the Left shall support Beazley than Latham, on account that the benefits to luvvydom will exceed the costs. I believe that Beazley will defeat Latham in a leadership contest, however this blogger will happily eat his words several thousand miles from home should he be proven wrong.

That will be "Sir" to you, coolie

We moved on from Bangkok having not set a foot outside the airport. There isn't much going on there anyway, or at least nothing important if I wasn't invited. Sri Lanka is much more fun.

The place is in a state of emergency since the insane power-freak president called it and sacked three ministers she didn't like. Then she denied there was such a thing a couple of days later. No one really knows. Thus the streets are filled with police who are kind of on full alert, sort of brandishing machine-guns behind waist-high sand-bag walls. People do not take President Kumaratunga seriously.

Ramadan is in full swing. It consists of Muslims getting pissed at 2 am, bashing bongo drums, and shouting at the tops of their voices right below my bedroom window. I intend to join the fun sometime tonight - "G'day mate, my name's Kufr, what's yours?". It all comes to a head this Wednesday, presumably being the Grand Finale of Mufti Woodstock. Those crazy bastards sure know how to party in a country that isn't Muslim.

We've seen a few sights, wandered around here and there, mingled with locals. We're staying with a Tamil friend of ours who studied at UWA, plus a couple of others. She's getting married in a few days, so my GF gets to wear a sari, and I get to wear a dress. Anyone who saw "Bend it like Beckham" will know what I mean.

We went to one of the places where Buddha hung out on his three trips to Sri Lanka. Apparently a few body parts of his were lying in gold Buddha statue behind a glass case. The temples kick ass and are even better than the ones in Thailand and Cambodia.

Otherwise, the minimum security zoo is not to be missed. The ostriches are "enclosed" behind a knee high wooden fence. You can walk down the hill and pat the African elephants if you want to risk a small fine, and, failing that, certain death. Half of the animals could walk out of captivity if they could be bothered. I think the insane heat is the best form of enclosure this country has.

Outside the minimum security zoo are a group of poor bastards selling windmills and mangos. The windmill and mango industry, for microeconomics students, is one of perfect competition. There were a couple of dozen windmill and mango sellers standing barefoot in the rain outside the zoo, trying to sucker in a few westerners and rich Sri Lankans. I will blog more about the economic situation here, and poverty generally, but some of these people are at least as poorly off as those in Cambodia (I went there last summer), which is no mean feat.

Signing off for now.

Mini-hiatus, sort of, maybe not

Today my GF and I arrived in Bangkok on route to some other mystery destination. We are going on a two-month trip around Asia, so blogging will not be an everyday occurrence. Maybe a couple of times a week.

More news soon.

The case against the Equal Opportunity Commission

This title paraphrases a fine work by P.P. McGuinness against the Arbitration Commission. Anyway, here is a good case against the EOC if ever there was one, and I don't have to write a lengthy polemnic this time:

LET me tell you how two Christian pastors came to be on trial after discussing Islam in church, in a case that's so far cost them $100,000.

But let's look at the bright side. The converts have given Sisely three more complaints to add to her little list. In the discrimination industry, that seems to count as a success.

If this story is a close approximation of the truth, then the Bracks Government should be voted out on this and this alone. They have completely abused the rule of law in this indefensible incident.

We must pause and reflect: if the Victorian Labor Government has effectively banned any criticism of minority religions (while allowing ritual defamation against Christianity), what does the Federal Labor Party have in store for those of us left who still believe that Voltaire was not an evil bastard?

If the Liberals were in any way competent, they'd run the divisive culture war of the millenium on this issue, doing a direct mail-out to every constituent in Labor's blue-collar seats about how the Victorian Government is repealing freedom of speech at the behest of the ethnic lobby. It would be a total no brainer in theory, but of course this is a State Liberal Party we are talking about.

Newspoll, Rupert Murdoch, and control freaks

The Newspoll data quoted by Steve Lewis at the Australian is up on the web.

The only two issues they quizzed voters on (aside from the fuzzy personality ratings - caring, decisive, etc) were national security and the economy. The Murdoch press knew which way these issues were to go and had every intention of

a) structuring a poll that would favour the Prime Minister;
b) publishing an interpretation of that poll designed to convey the "growing doubts" about Mr Crean's leadership (with no evidence of having recorded such "growing doubts" and "leadership speculation") within the ALP.

In other words, it was a fix, and more to the point, an obvious one that is an insult to our intelligence. Rupert Murdoch has a history of media bias and seeking to influence the outcome of elections to his liking. His strategy this time is to:

a) attempt to regime-change the ALP in order to slot Mark Latham (or Kim Beazley if things get desperate) into the leadership position, pending an election where the Murdoch press would be evenly balanced between Labor and the Coalition;
b) failing that, launch a vitriolic, biased and spiteful campaign against Simon Crean in order to keep the Labor Party out of office at the next election.

If Mark Latham is the ALP leader, I predict that the Murdoch press will hedge their bets at the next election. If Simon Crean is the ALP leader, I predict the Murdoch press will unanimously editorialise against his candidacy for the office of Prime Minister.

Plan A will probably fail, so Plan B is looking more likely. Therefore, the 2004 federal election campaign will be a proxy war between

-News Limited;
-Fairfax/ABC.

With the three dominant media outlets locked into partisan positions, we should be thinking to ourselves whether this is a direction we ought to be taking in a democratic society.

Taking the Christ out of Christmas

The sight of a once-great civilisation turning to a nihilistic self-loathing is really quite a pathetic scenario. However it is increasingly a reality in a Christian west that has taken multiculturalism so far that it is steadily trying to erase the culture it began with. The people responsible for this are the baby boomers and cultural relativist academics who, in dismay that their model of human perfection, socialism, has gone to dust, are bitterly attempting to tear down the fabric of their own societies in desperate hope some utopian alternative will come out of nowhere.

This pervasive spread of political correctness is being used as a trojan horse to destroy the cultural lineage and historical memory of the west. Any alternative to a culture built on liberal democracy tinged with biblical law will suffice for these vandals. We expected the seasonal attempts by crypto-marxist teachers and child-care providers to abolish Christmas. What is truly confounding is that even the Red Cross are submitting to this nonsense.

Fearing they might offend someone, Red Cross stores in Britain have taken the Christian out of Christmas this year, banning any display of overtly religious decorations.

"We are a non-religious organization, but personally I think it has gone too far," a volunteer in the store told the newspaper. "I don't think Muslims are offended by Christmas."

This is contemptible. The notion that Christ can somehow have nothing to do with Christmas is bizarre. This squares the increasing agnosticism of our public holidays, but it raises an important question - why celebrate something you don't believe in? This is of course precisely what the secular humanists want - a society of confusion and without direction or memory so that their intellectual fantasies can reign in reality.

The delegitimising of western culture and history is naturally accompanied by a completely uncritical defense of Islam, which has now become the "great white hope". Islam is now the obvious alternative and thus the intellectuals are hitching themselves to a moral force that is actually capable of destroying western civilisation. First, of course, there is a need to create a climate of guilt and hysteria whereby criticism of this creed becomes virtually illegal. Thus attacking the character of Jesus Christ and Christians generally is perfectly alright, and even considered "progressive". Yet to question the moral foundations of Islam, even the character of Mohammed himself, is actually "racist" and "orientalist". Statutory commissions are set up to make attacking Islam a hate crime, while attacking Christianity in precisely the same language will remain legal. This is the first step of unraveling a successful culture.

A great speech from Srdja Trifkovic on the topic carries the quote:

The disdain of Western Civilization, and the corresponding urge to glorify anything outside it, especially if it can be depicted as a victim of the West, is a well-known phenomenon of the contemporary academia. One of the forms it has taken in recent years is the attempt to artificially inflate the historic achievements of other civilizations beyond what the facts support. The noble savage myth is a commonplace; what is more complex is the myth that has been bandied about the supposed "golden age" of Islamic civilization during the Middle Ages.

In other words, a fairy tale designed to create the illusion that multiculturalism has valid historical precedents that prove it can work.

Given the cultural trends we are seeing, it would not be unfair to suggest that there is a tacit Islamic-Left conspiracy to mortally undermine western society. What other conclusion are we expected to come to when you have equivocators and waverers making excuses for the dominant world civilisation outside of their own, while simultaneously and ferociously seeking to undermine the cultural memory of their own societies? The cause of Islam is obvious - they just want a unified caliphate like they always did. But why the Left apologia? Why are they devoting so much emotional energy to railing against the societies that gave them their freedoms? Basically it comes down to ideology of multiculturaliam. If you don't believe in a hierachy of cultures (actually many do believe in a hierachy of cultures, but guess which one is the most evil?), then you must necessarily conclude that there is no need to defend your own society as it does not have any particularly remarkable features.

It follows that your culture is entirely replacable. If you are one who has spent much time railing against the illegitimacy of your own society, then the sooner the replacement the better. I was once on the radical Left, and have some sort of insight into the pathological nature of their philosophy, and the deep loathing they really do have for western societies. As one moderates to the liberal left, one can find people who reject revolution and class struggle, but still have no problem with the end-game of the radicals. It is in this model that we can begin to understand why the intellectual class of western nations generally and ours particularly are building their arsenals for a final assault on the foundations of our society.

That our society has served its people well (and has demonstrated an amazing capacity to reform and improve on basic values) and seems to work very successfully has never really entered their minds.

Media Bias and Newspoll

It is becoming increasingly clear that Rupert Murdoch wants Simon Crean to abdicate from the Labor leadership. Why do I say this? We will look at the contrasting ways that News.com and the Fairfax press have reported the latest Newspoll results. But first some facts. According to Newspoll, the following trends have been established over the last fortnight:

- on notional two-party preferred voting, the ALP have risen four points and are now in a dead heat with the Coalition at 50-50
- the Coalition's primary vote has fallen six points while Labor's is constant
- John Howard's satisfaction ratings are steady on 53 points, with dissatisfaction ratings rising from 35 to 37 points
- Simon Crean's satisfaction ratings are steady on 28 points, with dissatisfaction ratings falling from 54 to 53 points
- John Howard's preferred Prime Minister rating fell by one point to 58
- Simon Crean's preferred Prime Minister rating fell by one point to 17.

I conclude from the Newspoll data that the public's relative perceptions of the leaders of our major parties is virtually unchanged. I also conclude that last fortnight's show of a massive swing to the Coalition was an outlier. The trends are showing the parties on a dead heat (on two-party preferred).

Here is how News.com has spun the results (please be patient and read it through):

Key issues swamp Crean
By Steve Lewis, Chief political reporter
November 19, 2003

Voter confidence in Simon Crean's capacity to manage the economy and handle national security has plummeted to a record low, reinforcing jitters within the Labor caucus over his ability to combat John Howard during a gruelling election year.

The latest Newspoll shows the two major parties are deadlocked on 50 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, based on a notional distribution of preferences.

I urge all Truth, Liberty and an Akubra readers to note the bits I've highlighted above the last two sentences, and come to an independent conclusion as to whether this constitutes media bias. Note how the last two sentences are the bits showing that, despite all of the atrocious attributes of Simon Crean who really is a useless skunk (my opinion too, I admit)... THE ALP IS NECK AND NECK WITH THE COALITION. It is hidden down the bottom. Also note that the issue-based ratings (education, national security, etc) are not on the Newspoll site, so we cannot yet verify them. We only know the leader and party ratings.

I move on to the Fairfax press take on the Newspoll. I will highlight phrases of note.

Coalition support tumbles
November 18, 2003 - 6:30AM

The federal coalition has sustained a dramatic fall in electoral support but this has failed to boost Labor's primary vote, the latest Newspoll has found.

"Despite the high-profile release from jail of Pauline Hanson, One Nation has increased its support only marginally to 2 per cent - half the level it attracted nationwide in 2001," The Australian said.

I highlighted the Greens rating because Christopher Sheil wrote - "Meanwhile, Newspoll reports that the popularity of the Greens is surging" - when their support was at seven points, up by one. Shame on you, Chris! Don't stoop to their levels of distortion.

Enough Sheil-bashing (sorry to hold you up as an example - I'll get back to the main offenders) for now.

It is clear that the Fairfax press wants to run an agenda of their own:

- that the fall in support for the Government was in some way related to the Melville Island refugee affair.

This is despite the fact that the poll showed a restoring of the status quo over the previous Newspoll result. The long-term trend (despite last fortnight's outlier) is that the parties are neck and neck on two-party preferred.

I conclude the following points from the latest Newspoll release:

1) For whatever reason, Newspoll have not published a break down of their data on the issue-based polling that was so damning of Simon Crean;
2) That the Murdoch press is determined to deliberately distort the facts in order to destroy yet another Labor leader (the last time they ran a deliberate campaign of distortion was against Bill Hayden);
3) That the Fairfax press is lighter and less outrageous on the bias factor here, but is still seeking to pander to a left-liberal pro-refugee constituency in their false interpretations of polling data.

Before I go any further, I'll declare an interest based on my current political approach. I support the Liberal Party on issues of defence, security and foreign affairs. I support the Labor Party on health and taxation issues (particularly if Latham prevails and brings in tax-credits). Thus I agree that Simon Crean will be unable to control the urgings of his tertiary-educated underlings to reduce Australia's ability to defend itself. However I do not like having news coming at me like a wrong-un. Straight deliveries please, not spin.

Truth, Liberty and an Akubra hereby denounces the Murdoch press for undermining the democratic process by deliberately distorting the facts. This is being done in order to control the political agenda far beyond the franchise that should be accorded a media proprietor. A free and unbiased press is a precondition for a working democracy, not some private luxury good that can be abused without serious consequences. The media has the obligation to be objective, not to be political operators in their own right. It has become clear that this expectation will not be fulfilled by Australia's lying and distorting media.

This blog extends a denunciation to the ABC and the Fairfax press for engaging in similar matters of bias, only for the opposite reasons - to eject John Howard from office. The ABC has become a commune for middle-class lefty artists and biased programmers. The Fairfax Press violates its own code of ethics by continuing to employ Margo Kingston as a "journalist". She is in fact a political operator who is employed on a full-time basis to oppose the Howard Government.

The 2004 federal election will be a contest between
-Labor, Greens, Democrats, Fairfax and the ABC, and
-Liberals, Nationals, News Limited and conservative independents.

The Australian media cannot be trusted with our democracy. I urge all bloggers to devote their time to exposing the across-the-board media bias that is threatening our political process.

More Affirmative Apartheid

The Campus Bake Sale shakedown continues (thanks to John Ray for the link).

Many conservatives and libertarians are taking up the fight against affirmative action in America, and the Academic Race Warriors are screaming "racist" in response and resorting to their usual despicable tactics. These modern day Lombards will stop at nothing to tear down the social fabric of prosperous democratic nations in their pursuit of destructive ideological goals. Divide and conquer - rip the nation into racial and gender (they gave up on class when the workers gave them the finger) blocs, create a climate of perpetual grievance, and forcibly steal "compensating" income from taxpayers.

Campus culture wars bring back memories for me. Back in early 2000, about 100 or so Arts students (but not of the politically correct, bleeding heart variety) attempted to start a "Gentleman's Club" at UWA. Women were to be members (and indeed were to hold executive positions), however the aim of the club was to organise Caberet shows and all dress up like pompous English gentlemen and smoke cigars. It was an idea for an alternative drinking club. Hence, "Gentleman's Club".

Naturally, the Fascist Left were outraged by the idea. A ridiculous campaign was led by the totalitarian Women's Officer and her army boot wearing feminazi comrades to have the club banned from campus. We applied for registration at Societies Council, however it became perfectly clear that we could not be a guild club due to our "sexist" image and we would not be able to advertise on campus. This is despite the fact that there is a Women's department that attracts thousands of dollars in funding per year (distributed among the approximately six members of the collective) that exists to perpetuate the fiction that women are systematically discriminated against on campus.

The tide of hysteria swept the Guild Council to agreeing in principle the club should be banned. I read the Guild Council minutes from that meeting, and discovered (with some degree of amusement) the pathetic pandering to the wimminists by the Council metrosexual brigade (many of whom were members of drinking clubs themselves - if only the Manic Depressives Society could find out what their own members were saying on Guild Council!). Not one member questioned the complete lack of freedom of thought associated with the anti-Gentleman's Club campaign, and all pandered to the sanctimonious bullying tactics of the elite femocrats. I believe this must be a version of "vanishing penis syndrome" as documented by Andrew Sullivan.

This is how universities work. They are dominated by pro-communists, Thought Police, the ethnic mafia, and the feminazis. And when the rest of us refuse to partake in round robins of self-loathing and hand-wringing (or develop a dangerous pattern of independent thought), our commitment to spiritual equality of peoples comes into question. The sooner we purge universities of the Jacobin academics, and squeeze funding from do-nothing commissars in the student unions, the freer and more enlightened we will all be, culturally and intellectually.

This is outrageous

Thanks to Bernard Slattery for this link.

It seems there has been more offensive pandering to religious minorities at the expense of Christianity by New York public schools. This is religious discrimination, but they probably call it "affirmative action" and redressing the historical evils of the West.

ANN ARBOR, MI — The historical fact of the birth of Jesus was denied by the New York School system in pleadings filed with a federal court to justify their total ban on Christmas Nativity displays in New York’s public schools. New York’s legal briefs disputed the claim that the Nativity scene depicts a historical event, and that this event is the basis for the celebration of Christmas.
At issue in the federal lawsuit filed last year by the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is New York’s policy on religious displays, which prohibits public school displays of Christmas Nativity scenes, while at the same time encouraging the display of the Jewish Menorah and the Islamic star and crescent during their respective holidays. Federal Judge Sifton will hear oral arguments this week on the Law Center’s motion to temporarily restrain the City from enforcing its ban on Nativity scenes.

Pursuant to the policy, City schools display the Jewish Menorah and the Islamic star and crescent during Hanukkah and Ramadan, but not the Nativity scene during Christmas. One public school principal issued a memo encouraging teachers to bring to school “religious symbols” that represent the Islamic and Jewish religions. No mention of Christianity was made in this memo. At times, teachers would have students make the Jewish Menorahs that would often adorn the halls of the schools as part of the “authorized” displays. However, the students were not allowed to make and similarly display Nativity scenes. When a parent wrote to her son’s teacher to complain about this, the teacher responded by sending the parent a copy of the school’s “Holiday Displays” policy.

...

Robert Muise, the Law Center attorney handling the case observed, “This case will decide whether public school officials can enforce a policy that shows preference for Judaism and Islam, but disfavors Christianity. Can Christianity be erased from a public school? Can “Christ” be removed from Christmas? We will soon find out.”

In December 2001 and again in 2002, Catholic League president William Donohue attempted to get school officials to change their discriminatory policy, with no success. School officials dismissed requests to display the Nativity scene and instead would only allow Christmas trees, erroneously claiming that Supreme Court precedent prohibited them from including the Nativity scene as part of their holiday displays. Remarkably, schools officials permit the display of the Jewish Menorah and Islamic star and crescent, claiming that these are “secular” symbols.

The post-60s secular humanists are waging an open war against Western society. Nothing will stop these lunatics in their pathological determination to erase all signs of a distinguishable and successful culture and set of rules by which we govern ourselves. They seek to create confusion, self-doubt and perpetual grievance in order to satisfy their ideological convictions that:

a) There is no God and we must steer our children clear of any mention of His name;
b) If there is a God, his name is Yahweh or Allah (preferably Allah). We will only allow minority or "Oriental" religions to be favoured;
c) We must erase the teachings of the Bible (particularly the division between right and wrong) which only serve to legitimise oppression and servitude.

These have been the obsessions of the baby boomers in their LSD-induced rage against the West ever since they went to university in the 60s.

The question I pose to readers is this: do any of you believe we could survive one more generation like that of the baby boomers?

Lawrence to rock the boat

I'll take a break from my study to post on an article in the West Australian.

Carmen Lawrence is going to try to push the ALP's policy on asylum seekers further from the electoral middle ground.

NEW Labor president Carmen Lawrence will use the party's national conference in January to try to force changes to its asylum seekers policy.

Labor's policy on the treatment of asylum seekers favours removal of children from detention but says adults should continue to be held in the Christmas Island detention facility. It would also continue to issue temporary protection visas to refugees.

This is going back to before the Keating Government, which I hasten to remind you all, was responsible for the introduction of mandatory detention.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said yesterday that thousands of asylum seekers were waiting in Indonesia to be smuggled into Australia.

Dr Lawrence said Mr Ruddock's insistence on returning asylum seekers was wrong. She would support allowing all asylum seekers, except those posing a health or security risk, to live in the community while their claims for refugee status were being processed.

There are several points that need to be made on Carmen's plan. Current asylum law is configured such that

● There is a trade-off between those who apply for asylum onshore and those who apply offshore
● Any significant increase in the numbers of people who seek asylum onshore necessarily decreases the number of asylum seekers we can take offshore
● Granting asylum to wealthier onshore asylum seekers discriminates against poorer offshore asylum seekers.

There is one way around this, and it follows on from the refugee motions passed by ALP conferences around Australia last year - you can decouple the onshore and offshore contingents. Thus the number of people who come to Australia onshore no longer becomes a zero-sum game within our refugee intake. There are costs involved -

● By allowing any number of people to enter Australia's migration zone and seek asylum onshore we must necessarily cede control over the numbers of immigrants we accept each year
● By allowing people to come onshore and seek asylum in favourable conditions (community housing, etc) we are likely to encourage more people to pay to come to Australia
● We have no national interest in encouraging the operations of people-smugglers, indeed, there is some chance (however small) that criminal activities will proliferate around the activities of well-funded people-smuggling operations.

We can conclude that it is in Australia's national interest to take more refugees offshore than onshore. This is because we can effectively discriminate by creating an asylum queue offshore, and directly control the numbers of people we allow in. I firmly believe that immigration policy should have three aims -

1) To directly benefit Australia's economy;
2) To accept people who will integrate into Australian society;
3) To minimise any transfer costs or threats to national security.

In other words, Australia is a sovereign democracy that should only take immigrants if it benefits us. We do not owe anything to the world (except for Britain, who spawned us, and America, who defended us). We should structure immigration policies accordingly.

Before I move onto a more acceptable asylum-seeker policy, I will reflect further on the implications of Carmen's plan. There are several issues that need to be addressed with any onshore refugee programme:

● If we abolish mandatory detention we marginally undermine national security by allowing an unlimited number of onshore asylum applicants to live among the community without direct monitoring
● If said onshore applicants are about to lose their claims, there is a high likelihood they will abscond
● We cannot effectively track down an absconding false asylum seeker unless we either:
i) introduce a National Identification Card;
ii) insert a microchip (or some other tracking device) in every asylum seeker.

While I support National ID cards, there is no chance Carmen and her friends will ever countenance such a security measure. It is not on the cards. What they are proposing is to have asylum seekers report every now and then to the authorities. Should they abscond, their status would be similar to the reported thousands of escaped false asylum seekers now living in Australia. Further to the point, it is a known fact that the refugee advocates are harbouring said escapees in an "underground network". Even if people do abscond, they will be helped out by the usual suspects. We can conclude that national security is a second order concern of Carmen Lawrence, and is completely loathed as a concept by many refugee advocates.

Therefore, gradually unwinding the security checks we have in place will result in marginal to modest unraveling of our national security. There is a very simple solution to the refugee issue that conservatives should take up. At the same time the solution is far more compassionate than anything proposed by Carmen. First, however, we must point out several more issues:

● The Australian government has obligations only to Australian citizens
● The Australian government is only obliged to look after the welfare of Australian citizens
● Asylum seekers or any other immigrants do not have the "right" to apply onshore - that right only exists should we grant it.

Yet there is no need to take anyone onshore unless exceptional circumstances permit. Immigration is about costs and benefits, not absolute moral principles (which even then are dubious, given the moral proselytisers never consider the moral obligations of elected governments to their citizens - only to the UN). Thus an optimal asylum policy would involve the following:

● Abolishing Australia's migration zone and refusing to take any asylum seekers onshore
● Increasing the refugee intake through an entirely offshore component
● Either introducing an ID card so that existing applicants can be processed in the community or waiting for the detention centres to empty out
● Ensuring we keep our immigration offices offshore well-resourced.

This is easily justifiable for the following reasons:

● We do not have to take anyone unless they come directly from a territory where their life and property is in danger
● We can directly control the number of immigrants we take each year
● Through creating a queue and keeping it at arm's length we minimise transaction costs.

This platform is flexible. Should a catastrophe of some kind occur in our region (i.e. in any country adjacent to Australia) we can simply move in parliament to allow boat people to come onshore. This would be the humane thing to do. However, this is not what currently occurs. People are deliberately traveling through dozens of countries to come to Australia. Taking them in with a set refugee programme discriminates against those who apply offshore. De-coupling the offshore and onshore components necessarily unwinds Australia's ability to determine the number and quality of refugees we take. Thus it is better to abolish onshore applications and only allow said applications piecemeal if it becomes clear that the applicants are fleeing a regional catastrophe. The Fraser Government's Vietnam approach is a precedent for this.

I would say that we could certainly increase our refugee intake to some 20,000-25,000. However, immigration policy is not about "rights" or the "welfare of migrants". It is primarily about Australia's national interest both in economics and security. By upholding (and, I'd argue, extending) national security while looking after the poorest and most desperate refugees with the least money, we would be adopting the most sensible, humane approach.

Carmen Lawrence and her friends want the exact opposite.

The problem with Arts degrees

Andrew Norton has an interesting post on the relative merits of Arts degrees.

Some years ago I excited a lot of controversy by (pdf) pointing to the relatively poor employment prospects of Arts graduates. Admittedly, I partly wrote the paper because I knew the Arts lobby was very sensitive about the value of an Arts degree to students. I had several serious points to make, though, one of which being that I believe prospective students ought to be much better informed about courses and universities than they often are in practice.

This cause won't be helped by an article (subscription required) in the weekend issue of The Australian Financial Review. Its opening paragraph asserts that 'employers are increasingly seeking out arts graduates for their broader skills...'. Funny, that's not what the latest Graduate Destination Survey says. It confirms that yet again Arts graduates have among the lowest employment rates a few months after completion. Worse still, employment rates for humanities graduates fell much more than the graduate employment rates generally, down 7% compared to a 1.7% overall decrease. For the humanities graduates who did get jobs, their salaries relative to average weekly earnings dropped slightly more than for graduates generally. For whatever reason, employers are increasingly not seeking out Arts graduates.

On some of the attributes people say Arts graduates are likely to have, such as writing and critical thinking, Arts students did in fact do relatively well. But the interesting thing the GSA showed was that they were already relatively good in first year, before their study can have had much impact. So while an Arts degree may correctly signal to employers that a job applicant has the desired skills, it is as much because people with those skills are attracted to Arts degrees as anything done during the degree.

The supposed skills value adding in the Arts degree (as opposed to its signalling value) compared to other degrees doesn't show in the GSA results. For example, later year Arts students did on average 6.75% better on writing than the first years. But Commerce students did 14.75% better and Science students 8.65% better. On critical thinking the later year Arts students were 14.25% better than the first years, but again Commerce and Science students showed larger improvements.

Go read his article and check out the links.

Melia is up and running

The woggish influence at Mentalspace is doubling in size. Having placed unreconstructed wog, Gio Torre on Mentalspace, Davide Melia has just taken up a blog at the behest of Rob Corr.

Expect lots of shouting and wild gesticulations.

Debate rages over at Spleenville

Perhaps the most vitriolic debate I've ever read is going on right now over at Tim Blair's Spleenville. As the debate ranged from "Marking Time", the ABC and taxpayer funds to Islam, Osama Bin Laden, and refugees, you can expect that there was very little goodwill between the combatants.

Oh, and Paul Bickford (writing as "Habib") was involved. He is the most offensive son of a bitch in the world. Go vote for him (via his website) as the most "offensive male blogger" online. Some highlights:

What the fuck has spelling got to do with being offensive, you big bottom burp?
Pedantic anal cretins like you probably review your comments before you post them, even cut and paste to word to run a spell-check then re-paste, then post, because you have such shallow, empty, pathetic lives.
Offensive enough? If not come back- I will taunt you some more.

...

I did watch it (I taped it, due to the RWC quarter finals being on), and it was shite with a capital S.
Roy Slaven thinks we're all (except for his coterie of Balmian Bolshevik mates) ignorant, redneck racist fuckwits, who are in need of re-education.
Once a lefty teacher, always a lefty teacher, only this time the bastard has access to my money to indoctrinate empty heads to his way of thinking.
I'm getting mighty sick of paying marginal rates of 49% to fund arseholes to tell me what a piece of shit I am.
I have no problem with anyone making any film or TV piece, or writing anything they want, as long as I don't have to pay for it. At least with the Age and the SMH I don't have to buy them- I don't have any choice with the ABC.
If it is, as is claimed, so popular, what's the problem with making it a subscription service?

...

I don't see sitting in front of a PC and flogging your own personal views while collecting a grant from the ABC or Film australia or whoever stumped up the cash as being particularly admirable.
If he had gone out and sold the idea to venture capitalists, raised all the required dosh and wrote it on his own dollar, good on him.
Instead, he took the easy option of getting a left-biased public funded organisation to subsidise his hand-wringing; fuck him.

I tend to be sympathetic to the ABC-skeptics - it is a publicly funded body (receiving upwards of $700 million a year) that has been hijacked by ideologues. There are two approaches that could rectify this problem:

- privatise the ABC and allow it's "Friends" and associates to buy shares and produce as much propaganda as they like (meaning that no one has to fund a broadcaster they don't support)
- have a publicly-subsidised free-to-air FOX channel to balance the ABC.

People who support public broadcasting surely couldn't disagree with my last point, could they? What could they possibly see as being wrong with having THREE publicly funded channels rather than TWO? If the ABC is defined in economic terms as a "public good" that must be subsidised to provide to all consumers, why not FOX?

Or alternatively, if public goods like government media are going to be misused regardless of who's in government, why not make them private goods and therefore a matter of consumer choice?

UPDATE

Oops, looks like the poll has closed. Paul Bickford is now the second most offensive male blogger. Well done bridesmaid!

It's Carmen

This is great news for the Tories.

What will eventuate will be a further consolidation of the power of the inner-city Left, followed by more years of electoral irrelevance. Well done!

Cry me a river

According to Geoff Kitney, John Howard "forgot" to recognise the 25th anniversary of taxpayer-funded ethnic brib... sorry, I mean Multiculturalism:

Howard's strong re-emphasis on Australia's English roots, symbolised by this week's events and by the path he frequently treads to London, contrasts with his clear discomfort with multiculturalism. Howard did not even mark the 25th anniversary of multiculturalism in Australia with a statement, let alone a celebration or a monument.

Who cares?

The strong "adopt our culture or get out" attitude of the more extreme supporters of the Howard view (including former Hansonites) is absolutely hostile to non-Anglo-Celtic influences. Those who hold this view are, in Howard's name, promoting and working for the reassertion of a '50s-style monoculture.

The bizarre thing about Australia is that the cultural liberals, relativists and multiculturalists do not seem to carry any burden of proof. Theirs is the default view, shielded from criticism, that does not need to prove it's merits as should any other policy. Multiculturalism ought to be about simply tolerating the beliefs of people so long as they obey Anglo-Celtic law. Unfortunately, the real agenda is to re-make Australia's public institutions into a form of neutralism that carries no over-riding set of beliefs. Perhaps it's time to turn the debate around, starting with a rewording of Kitney's paragraph:

The strong "accept our dogma or be silenced" attitude of the more extreme supporters of the Keating view is absolutely hostile to Anglo-Celtic influences. Those who hold this view are, in Keating's name, promoting and working for the reassertion of a '70s-style counter-culture.

Even though that doesn't make much sense, it certainly reads much better than Kitney's ridiculous suggestion that Howard supporters are working for a 50's style monoculture. This is bogus. Not even Howard believes this, nor does Quadrant, nor does the entire Anglo-cultural (the Toorak crowd, Adelaide establishment, Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy) establishment of Australia. They are trying find some kind of cultural glue, and given that Australia continues to be a predominantly Anglo-Celtic nation (Anglo-Celtic cultures, by the way, are the only nations that have constantly maintained and steadily extended democracy in the last 200 years - easily the most successful experiment in governance ever) it makes sense to stick with what works. What citizens do in their own time is up to them.

Beating a dead horse

Simon Crean has come out with a highly original critique of the Howard Government.

THE Federal Government's focus on relationships with the United States and Britain was costing Australian influence in Asia, Opposition Leader Simon Crean said today.

"The focus put on the American relationship and the UK relationship has seen us excluded from the important leadership dialogue tables being established in Asia," Mr Crean said in London.

Goodness! How did he think of that one? What an brilliant theory!

Hey Simon. If Australia is a pariah in the region thanks to Howard, can I ask how many ASEAN meetings Paul Keating got invited to?

Can I also ask how many bilateral trade agreements Keating signed with Asian countries? Is ALP foreign policy more about posturing and wearing frilly shirts than actually delivering the goods?

Who cares about the UN anyway?

Not me, and it looks like we'll soon be given yet another reason to hate the UN when it passes a resolution condemning Israel and calling for the protection of Palestinian children, yet refuses to pass a similar resolution calling for the protection of Israeli children from suicide bombers:

Israel is to introduce a resolution to the United Nations General Assembly for the first time ever.
The resolution - calling for Israeli children to be protected from violence by Palestinians - is Israel's way of testing the waters at the UN.

But Israel decided to introduce its own resolution, which seems closely based on an Egyptian one in defence of Palestinian children, after a suicide bomber killed 21 people in Haifa last month.

Pass your silly little motion, Arabs. Then parade your hypocrisy (and support for terrorism) before the world by denying the right of Jewish children not to be exterminated by suicide bombers.

Tony Blair speaks

Link:

What is happening in Iraq is that for the first time in 40 years, some semblance of broad-based government is being introduced with the aim, as soon as is possible, of moving towards full democracy.

And why are they doing it? Because they know that if we give Iraq democracy, set it on a path to prosperity, leave it in the sole charge and sovereignty of the Iraqi people, its oil its own, its citizens free to worship in the way they wish, Muslim and non-Muslim, that means not just the rebirth of Iraq, it means the death of the poisonous propaganda monster about America these extremists have created in the minds of much of the world. What these fanatics are doing now in Iraq is not irrational. It is an entirely rational strategy: Lose the battle in Iraq and they lose their ability to present the Muslim world as victims and they as their champions.

Iraqi blogosphere booming

Bloggers in the know need not pay too much attention to this message. This one is for the UWA crowd, assuming they are not up to speed.

One of the pleasant side-effects of both the growth of the blogosphere and the deposing of Saddam Hussein has been the increasing tendency for educated Iraqis to take to the keyboard and fire away. For those who haven't read any Iraqi blogs, we are now up to seven. We have Healing Iraq, Riverbend, Gaith, Ishtar, Mesopotamian, Ays, and the famous Salam Pax. The divergence of opinion is quite striking, with Baghdad Burning easily supplying the most hostile commentary to the Coalition and others fairly upbeat at the way things are.

It has been theorised elsewhere what outcomes would have eventuated had blogs existed during the Vietnam War. I would suggest that there would have been either greater purpose in fighting the War well and properly (forcing the S. Vietnamese Govt. to reform, and making some attempt to regime change Hanoi), or on the other hand an earlier realisation that there was simply no coherant strategy in pursuing a limited war (backed up by heavy and ill-directed air bombardment) with little idea of what a good "end game" would look like.

One could pose the theory that the internet generally, and blogs in particular, have the capacity to improve the actions of governments involved in conflicts in two ways:

1) By ensuring that any democratic governments involved put a greater emphasis on winning "hearts and minds" and not alienating an indigenous population with internet access;

2) By spreading the word from the other side of the Iron Curtain (through pseudonyms if necessary) about how the enemy's propaganda is all lies.

On the other hand, I'd like to pose this question:

Can we apply this model to all wars and come up with a strategic victory for the forces of freedom and democracy every time in every war? If modern communication was possible during WWII and the Korean War, would the Anglosphere still have been victorious? Would enemy propaganda effectively be used to overwhelm the mediums of communication to undermine domestic morale?

There are some questions the punters might like to think about. In the meantime, I'll get back to my History study.

In memory

Today is Remembrance Day, when we get together to remember the fallen in battles past and honour our soldiers for protec...

Hey, what's all that shouting for?

THE official Remembrance Day ceremony in Melbourne today was disrupted by a small group of anti-war protesters.

Bystanders heckled the group, calling them a disgrace, before police intervened, grabbing the women and leading them away.

Marking Time

I thought I'd write a review of the Marking Time four-hour miniseries that has been an ABC feature over the last two nights. Paul Bickford has already referred to it as:

a self indulgent, hectoring, lecturing load of shite.
The story is trite, and as for the shiela in question being Afghan, she looks about as Afghan as I look Korean.
ABC management must have been confident about its pulling power as well, what with running it against a Rugby world Cup quarter final and a couple of movies.

Damning words indeed. But that is not really the spirit of what I want to go into.

I sat down last night to begin to view the series with much anticipation, and indeed plenty of foreboding. This sense, this premonition of taxpayer funded bias was of course honoured by the script which was, as I suspected it would be, littered with partisan attacks on the Howard Government and George Bush.

I will deal with the negatives first. John Doyle's Marking Time could have dealt with a difficult issue in good taste if it wanted to. It could even have been a quality series. The basic storyline - of a young man in a rural town falling in love with a Muslim asylum seeker (one who was not considered a refugee and was about to be deported), and realising the conflict between public policy and personal relations - had much potential for a riveting story. I say this because there have been actual instances of this, or at least similar situations, in Australia and elsewhere. I can name one or two instances of people I know building relationships with refugees.

Starting from a half decent theme, the series went rapidly downhill. John Doyle could not restrain himself from making partisan political attacks on the Liberal Party (and those who voted for them), to the point where it seriously called into question the intent of the programme. For example:

● At a meeting of the Brackley Festival committee of which Hal (Abe Forsyth) and his father Geoff (Geoff Morrell) were members, Geoff attacks the use of the word queue-jumper by another committee member, enforcing the issue with a partisan attack on the Liberal Government's funding of private schools. He referred to private school students as "queue jumpers";

● Geoff sneers at George W. Bush on the T.V after 9/11, making the observation (in not so many words) that Bush was not up to the standards of world leadership required to deal with terrorism;

● Hal, the boy who falls in love with the asylum seeker, tells viewers in his narration that he is disgusted by the major parties and casts a vote for the Greens in the 2001 election;

● The series depicts the locals of small-town Brackley (and Australians generally) as a group of crazed race bigots. For example, asylum-seeker Randa’s house is burned down after the 9/11 attacks by some bigoted elements of the town-folk “in retaliation”.

● At a meeting of the Brackley festival, committee members vote to publish the addresses of all asylum seekers in the region to ensure that all "potential terrorists" could be kept under surveillance and not "launch attacks" on the festival;

● When Hal was seeking to travel overseas (in what was then early 2002), his father made the smirking observation that he is no longer safe as an Australian tourist and would be better off if he was a New Zealander. This was a snide reference to Australia's role in the overthrow of the Taliban only months earlier in what was an enormous international coalition. The writer of this story forgot that New Zealand sent the SAS as a part of this international coalition.

In other words, there is a recurring theme of anti-Howard, anti-Bush, pro-Green political bias. Australians are presented as hysterical Ku Klux Klan types who want to kill asylum seekers. The New Zealand reference was particularly amusing because it was so utterly wrong. The show, ever so subtly, wanted to say that Helen Clark was a great leader who supports world peace unlike those reckless war-mongering Australians, even though Clark's peacenik alter-ego was only relevant to the Iraq War in 2003.

The good themes of Marking Time involve the representation of the clash between the pious and prudent Afghan/Islamic culture of Randa (the asylum seeker girl) and her father, vis-a-vis the agnostic, boozing, rowdy types in rural Australia. There was potential to build on this theme, as Randa found herself disturbed by the alcohol abuse at drunken parties, while her father was paranoid at Hal's sexual advances towards her. Also, the possibility that Randa may get pregnant and be stoned to death back when she was sent back to Afghanistan was taken up strongly by Geoff.

There were glimmers of social commentary that could almost have made for a decent plot. However, the ABC could not restrain themselves (but did we really expect any better?). The show lapsed into a typical knee-jerk "oh I'm ashamed to be Australian" theme, when there was no need to do so. Randa ultimately lost her bid for a visa and was, according to our ever porous script, found to be a Pakistani. She and her father had been housed in the community during the process of their claims and their claims failed, which was apparently a stain on the country's soul. It was a bizarre ending, but unfortunately it summed up the temper of the show.

What is so infuriating is that the theme had potential to be good. Many people can have seen such a situation - couples torn apart due to forces they cannot control - and it is a theme that could have been applied well in an Australian context. John Doyle nutted out a plot that, in the end, failed to amount to much more than a clumsy partisan attack on John Howard, and a berating of Australians generally. The recurrence of political brinksmanship brings into question the intent of the series in the first place - did Doyle actually want to write a decent romantic drama, or did he want to vent his political spleen at the expense of taxpayers?

That is ultimately a question that the ABC should itself be asking, if it really does wish to be taken seriously in future.

UPDATE

Wogblog has some serious issues with the ABC's attitudes to wogs. Like all wogs are substitutable:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha, ahhhh.

Wogs are all purpose in the ABC World.

...

The Aghan dad is played by a Polish man.

And he does a good job too, as does the girlie, with an appallingly juvenile script.

UPDATE II

It is always a pleasure to discover that myself and my blogging compatriots are happily out of step with the media and the arts industry. Here is what The Age had to say:

A beautiful coming-of-age love story, mostly it's a fable about journeys. Hal's journey to manhood, Randa's journey as a teenager falling in love for the first time, Geoff's journey as a widowed father letting go of his son. Australia's journey from a proud, open and welcoming country to one that is closed, mistrusting and fearful.

The Australian at least had a more balanced view:

And it's also clear Doyle wants to make a point. He's asking questions about where we are headed as a country and challenging the hardness that has emerged in our national psyche towards refugees in the past three or four years. This couldn't be any more obvious if the miniseries ran a news broadcast-style ticker across the bottom of the screen pointing this out, but sometimes things need to be said loudly.

And with whose money, might I ask?

There have been other reviews, but basically the media has given far more credit to this series than it deserves. At least some of us are prepared to call a spade a spade.

Being Steve Irwin

Actually, that could just as well read "hating Steve Irwin", which appears to be the latest fad among Labor, the cultural Lefties, and the Arts chatterati. Miranda Devine has an article on the fallout from Irwin's declaration that John Howard was the "greatest leader ever" and the "greatest leader in the entire world". Of course, you can't say that if you're an actor or on television, so the usual suspects are now doing their best to ruin Irwin.

Suddenly Irwin the likeable, outback ocker became Irwin the greedy "millionaire" Howard-lover. For some people, this was unforgivable.

Finally, last week, Irwin was forced to defend himself, issuing a statement explaining the money was for a whole year's work on the quarantine campaign, not one day, and that he had given every cent to a new koala hospital at his Queensland zoo.

Paying Bill Hunter $250,000 for advertising the Keating Government's "Working Nation" was apparently not as bad in the eyes of the cultural establishment, or even worth mentioning.

Great news for religious tolerance

...so long as you are happy to be a second-class citizen. Presenting, the Orwellian-named "Religious Tolerance" bill, recently introduced in the Indonesian parliament. This is wonderful news, so long as you don't actually aspire to build any more churches or convert anyone. Go read about it at dhimmiwatch.

Galloway and the Soviet Union

We all remember when British MP George Galloway got expelled from the Labour Party. Galloway was a particularly loathesome fellow for a number of reasons, however I think this one, quoted from an interview with the man himself, pretty much sums it up:

He says his political position is no different now than it was then; that while there are so many politicians marching across the ideological spectrum without explanation, he has stayed put. What is that position? "I am on the anti-imperialist left." The Stalinist left? "I wouldn't define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe."

UPDATE

I found some more Galloway quotes at the Guardian. Here are the best ones:

"Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability" - to Saddam in Baghdad, January 1994

"The difference between me and Mr Bush and Mr Blair is that I am against all dictatorships all of the time, not just some dictators some of the time"

Except of course the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein. Galloway is someone who openly supported two of the most contemptible dictatorships in modern history. The Labour Party, far from expelling a "principled radical" or "crushing dissent", has expelled from it's organs a particularly foul turd.

Chaos reigns

Saudi Arabia is beginning to resemble Beirut.

THE blast which rocked a residential compound in the Saudi capital Riyadh was the result of a suicide car bombing, a security officer at the scene said today.

"We don't have an exact toll and this is initial but our best guess is that between 20 to 30 were killed and 50 to 100 were injured," the Saudi-based senior diplomat said.

Does anyone have an idea of what psychotic urgings could be behind actions like this?

Prince Charles rumours

So that's what the Prince Charles "allegations" are about.

After a day or two of playful banter, whereby the media has been footsying around the now infamous "Charles allegations" (where the Royal family was denying something in public without actually revealing what it was they were denying!), the Drudge Report has come out with the substance of the claims.

Top editors at the NEW YORK TIMES panicked and ordered a story killed after London-based reporter Sarah Lyall filed a dispatch alleging rumors of Prince Charles and a sexual affair with one of his closest advisers!

"The allegation (although no one has said so publicly) has to do with purported sexual contact between Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, and Michael Fawcett, one of his closest advisers."

This can only get better.

Vietnamisation it is

The Bush administration has chosen Iraqisation as their end-game.

The US has announced plans for a big cut in the number of troops in Iraq next year, prompting criticism it could send the wrong message to Iraqi insurgents that their attacks may be forcing the US to withdraw.

"If our troop deployment schedules are more important than our staying power, we embolden our enemies and make it harder for our friends to take risks on our behalf," he said.

Bush, freedom, and the spread of democracy

I urge all Liberty readers to read the full text of George Bush's speech at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy. Some extremely important themes are covered, particularly with regards to past failure in the Middle East. Here are some excerpts of Condi Rice's interpretation:

Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said that in a speech Mr Bush was to make yesterday he would promote "the new opportunity for a forward strategy for freedom in the Middle East".

Dr Rice said: "After 60 years of trying to find stability through regimes that were not devoted to political liberty for their people, what we found is that we did not buy security of stability but rather frustration and pent-up emotions in a region that has fallen behind in terms of prosperity and in fact continues to produce ideologies of hatred."

Keeping these comments in mind, we'll now skip over to Dubbya's speech, taking the most important, relevant paragraphs.

Securing democracy in Iraq is the work of many hands. American and coalition forces are sacrificing for the peace of Iraq and for the security of free nations. Aid workers from many countries are facing danger to help the Iraqi people. The National Endowment for Democracy is promoting women's rights, and training Iraqi journalists, and teaching the skills of political participation. Iraqis, themselves -- police and borders guards and local officials -- are joining in the work and they are sharing in the sacrifice.

Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace.

Before these four paragraphs, Bush documented the extent to which some regimes in the Middle East are already going to reform their ways. Things are moving slowly, but in the right direction.

Bush's speech in some ways points to a revolution in American foreign policy, and in other ways merely follows from 60 years of continuity. On the continuity side of the equation, we can say with confidence that successive American administrations have defended democracy and advanced it's cause in three primary ways:

1) By either helping to create democracy or by providing nuclear and conventional support for existing pro-US democracies in Western Europe, North America and the Pacific.

2) By providing security cover and economic assistance for emerging pro-Western nations, which were developing liberal institutions and evolving into democracies behind the US security wall. Such nations were typically in East Asia and include Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Perhaps two European examples of this would be Greece and Spain. Had the United States not provided security cover for these nations, initially supporting questionable authoritarian regimes, they would have been marred by years of instability and been unable to grow, or, much worse, fallen under the influence of totalitarian forces.

3) By encouraging regime change in totalitarian nations that were thought likely to become pro-Western democracies. The most obvious example of this was in Eastern Europe.

We can conclude that the United States has been at least indirectly responsible for the liberation of hundreds of millions of people, and has directly managed the liberty of hundreds of millions more. We can also add that the US was opposed every step of the way by most of the Radical Left. I intend to make it my life mission to ensure the Radical Left wear their record as a crown of thorns.

However, every country has its blemishes. Mitigating this fine record can be found a number of questionable military ventures which, although some were based on sound strategic principles, were to end in tears. It can be shown that where apparent geo-political imperatives (often involving maintaining an anti-Soviet security alliance) conflict with human rights concerns, successive US administrations have allowed the former to prevail. Such instances of this include:

1) The military alliance with numerous questionable Latin American dictatorships, most notably Chile and El Salvador.

2) The economic and security alliance with some very questionable Middle Eastern dictatorships such as pre-1979 Iran and Saudi Arabia. Not forcing reform on the part of said ME dictatorships was a mortal mistake.

3) Supporting Saddam as the enemy of an enemy (ie post-1979 Iran), and ditching the Iraqi Shiites in 1991.

4) Maintaining military alliances with unreconstructed murderers and looters such as former President Suharto of Indonesia.

There are many more examples, but those will suffice for now. Previous adminstrations did a particularly poor job and lost much prestige from their convenient "friendships" with the forces of Middle East fascism. Now that those forces have bitten the United States in a very tender region, we can expect a serious urge to reform their past practices.

The Wolfowitz doctrine, the spread of democracy as a national security imperative, appears to be gaining foothold in the US administration, at the expense of the Old Establishment (Kissinger, Bush Snr and friends) who were more than happy with the status quo.

Keeping in mind the number of times where real-politic and democracy have walked hand in hand, as I have documented already, I believe that the invasion of Iraq will prove to be another such time. However, it must be said that the rule of law is the prerequisiste of democracy. If the United States cannot secure the rule of law in Iraq, then democracy will not eventuate.

Assuming that the US has an interest in a) ensuring that the instability in Iraq is overcome by security forces, and b) building a viable interim process towards democracy I would like to put this question:

Does anyone still believe (as did the majority of the anti-war protest organisers) that the United States and her allies want to "install" someone "worse than Saddam", as was often claimed. Or to turn the equation around, does anyone really believe that the coalition of western democracies who invaded Iraq want to find someone who will build more shredding machines, more torture chambers, and allow more rape and murder squads to roam the streets inflicting more terror and chaos among ordinary Iraqis? That is the only way anyone could be "worse than Saddam". Indeed, it appears we are heading in the precise opposite direction.

The Greens are dangerous

Thanks to Alan Anderson for informing us of yet another reason why the Greens should be treated with contempt.

THE Australian Greens have demanded that taxpayers fund sex-change operations under Medicare.

However, Treasurer Peter Costello has vowed to close the loophole, which also covers cosmetic surgery such as botox injections, breast enlargements and liposuction.

People who want a sex change are idiots in my opinion, but if they really, really, want that operation they can fund it themselves. I can't believe how ridiculous this is. The Greens' "health" policy consists of diverting funds from worthy causes in the public health system to sex-change operations. Either that or they believe in raising taxes on hard-working Australians to fund the extra costs associated with the Gaia-given right to transexuality.

I'm a fairly tolerant blogger, particularly on matters of sexuality. I don't particularly care what people do to their own bodies, frankly. What I do care about is when people insist on having abnormal behaviour subsidised by taxpayers. It is probably reasonable to suggest that if sex-change operations were undertaken by majority of people (or at least a substantial minority), a great deal of harm would be done to society. Perhaps harm would be inflicted up to the point where the continuation of the human species would be brought into question. So why encourage and positively assist such behaviour? Why not simply tolerate the actions of a controversial minority and let their ideas spread no further?

Wait a minute. The Greens are hostile to the continuation of the human species. Maybe we're onto something...

Kingston, Oldfield and Lateline

I just saw the most bizarre interview on ABC's Lateline regarding Pauline Hanson's successful appeal over electoral fraud charges, and her subsequent release from prison.

Just to prove to us that they have a sense of humour, Lateline roped in lunatic journalist Margo Kingston and the mad genius NSW One Nation MP David Oldfield to "analyse" the situation. Margo was completely bonkers.

TONY JONES: David Oldfield, let me bring you in, what do you say to that?

TONY JONES: Let's not going into that right now.

Watching the interview made for a striking contrast between the crazed Margo Kingston and the essentially sober Oldfield. Margo made no secret of her sympathies for Pauline. Then again, Margo seems to sympathise fringe right-wing extremists, not to mention former Ku Klux Klansmen, so long as they oppose Howard/Bush.

Anyway, back to the interview.

MARGO KINGSTON: It's very clear cut.

This is what this judgment is - is saying - that the Australian Government and Bob Carr, the NSW Government, is saying that a crime against democracy, misleading a commission is not really a crime and the reason they're saying that is because they rort the system all the time and get away with it.

Margo was practically frothing at the mouth when she said that. Oldfield was not impressed.

DAVID OLDFIELD: Tony, can I just come in there.

DAVID OLDFIELD: And Pauline Hanson would not have been entitled to legal aid, Margo.

A few more Margo raves later...

DAVID OLDFIELD: You don't vote Liberal, do you, Margo?

I will be surprised - there won't be a landslide either way - I will be surprised if Pauline Hanson does not at some stage come back into politics.

"Addled" was a good word to describe the entire interview.

The Left appear to be hedging their bets on Hanson. You see, they were never really opposed to Hanson in the first place, as proven by their recent antics. They raved against the Liberal Party for not doing anything to destroy Hanson (which was particularly ironic given it was the Keating Government's cultural politics that sparked the Hansonite rebellion in the first place) and then condemned the Liberals for actually doing something. Might I add that these neo-Hansonites were completely hypocritical for letting "Australians for Honest Politics" go through to the keeper in 1998, and then attacking it as an evil conspiracy in 2003?

It is now clear that, for the Left, Hanson was just another avenue through which to attack the Illegitimate Howard Dictatorship, and anyway, someone who opposes globalisation and the War on Terror would be good enough in a coalition of convenience. Funnily enough, Hanson may be shifting her position on law-and-order to something more resembling a love in.

"I've learnt a lot from it," Ms Hanson told reporters minutes after her release.

"I was just one of the girls in there and that's the way I wanted it. I didn't expect to be treated any differently and I still had my day on the dishes once a week," Ms Hanson said.

Irony abounds. As someone who is consistently tough on law-and-order issues and no-nonsense on national security, I look forward to the Kingston-Hanson crusade to "Free the Prisoners" with relish. I also will enjoy a bourbon or two watching the fruit-bat barking-mad howling-at-the-moon insanity of Hanson's new army of followers. Hanson is now one of the "Little People" according to Margo, one of the "oppressed" who will seek to "fight the system". That Hanson set up a sham political party that deceived members and gave them absolutely no say in it's affairs no longer seems to matter.

Margo and Pauline deserve each other.

Taxpayers fund Stalinist propaganda, latte left applaud

Greg Sheridan has a great article on the SBS decision to use public monies for the broadcasting of the Vietnamese Communist news service.

Some 200,000 Australians - 1 per cent of our population - are Vietnamese-born or have Vietnamese parents. One per cent of our population - you'd think they'd be entitled to some consideration, wouldn't you?

The committee Reporters Without Borders ranks Vietnam 159th out of 166 countries in terms of press freedom. Arrests of Buddhist and Catholic religious figures are common. Vietnam is less Stalinist than it used to be - after all, it's embraced a modest degree of market reform - but it's still one of the most Stalinist societies on Earth. The overwhelming majority of Vietnamese Australians came as refugees or relatives of refugees. Many had been through simply unbelievable torment and persecution.

Some fine paragraphs, granted, but the best one is this:

The cultural Left, the types who run organisations such as SBS, have never had much time for Vietnamese refugees because they are anti-communist. They didn't fit the neat, simplistic formulas that hold that all victimhood in this world is caused by Western colonialism.

Lest we drop our guard, citizens, we now know the real agenda.

Three millenia of Western Civilisation produced this...

We've come a long way, we descendents of the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Franks, the Greek city states, and the Roman Empire.

But the whole democracy, individual liberty, Magna Carta, Reformation thing has gotten a bit old.

We need a Next Big Thing to kick off another century or two of western dominance.

I've found it! It's the Ann Coulter talking action figure!

Time Magazine on Iraq

The main reasons for destroying the regime of Saddam Hussein were not humanitarian, nor had much to do with liberation. These are residual spin-offs in the Great Plan, and are to make the Plan as a whole much more acceptable. That's why we are seeing so many anti-Vietnam RSL vets jumping aboard USS Dubya.

On the Iraq issue, I heard many a campus pundit proclaim that the US would "install" someone "worse than Saddam" so that they could "steal all the oil".

What a brilliant model for world analysis! The pseudo-Marxian model of World Theory holds as follows:

-The US or at least the CIA played a part in the overthrow of Salvador Allende during the Nixon/Ford administration;
-Anything they do subsequently must be phoney, even though we are several adminstrations removed from Nixon/Ford;
-As we can't expect Bush to be any better than Nixon, Bush must want to "install" someone "worse than Saddam".

That is about the extent of strategic, political and economic analysis here at UWA. Never mind, these were the same people who told us that we were going to colonise the Solomon Islands, amongst other atrocities. Did we really expect a sane and rational critique of the western alliance?

Anyway, I don't have much else to report today, so I found this Time article for the pundits. It's all about post-war Iraq, and is well-balanced on the matter.

Is this a coincidence?

Or are the same totalitarian impulses in play here?

I didn't see this Little Green Footballs comparison of modern day far-Left and 1930's Nazi propaganda when it came out in April. But here it is for others that may have missed it.

Newspoll

Some interesting developments have come out of the last two weeks in politics.

Firstly, Bob Brown's silly antics in parliament have not translated into greater support for the Greens. Indeed voting intentions for the Greens show support falling from 8% to 6%.

Secondly, Simon Crean's leadership has just taken another beating. The Coalition has gained in two-party preferred by five points (up to 54), while the ALP has necessarily fallen to 46. Denis Shanahan has more:

The Howard Government has had its biggest single boost since the 1996 election after the twin presidential visits of George W.Bush and Hu Jintao, but the Greens' parliamentary protest appears to have backfired.

Labor's primary vote is down from 37 per cent to 36 per cent, as it appears caught between the Coalition's commitment to the US alliance and China trade, and voter anger with the Greens.

I predict that there will be renewed speculation on the ALP leadership (an issue which has been quiet of late) should the Tories maintain these ratings over the next three Newspolls. If nothing improves into the middle of next year, we can expect a leadership challenge.

Steve the idealist

Sometimes I sit in my chair at uni, hopelessly distracted from my studies, and try to find an answer to one of the toughest questions that can be asked of anyone. Not "what is the meaning of life". The question is: "do I really care about the majority of the world's people?".

The initial answer is "no". Frankly I don't. What others do is none of our business until it affects us directly. That doesn't imply a desire to do harm or bad by others, not at all. I'd like to see people doing just as fine as we folks are in Perth, WA. However, when it comes to trying to solve the world's problems, it is often best left to others to sort their own stuff out. Does anyone believe they can bring democracy to Somalia or Sudan? Of course not. The problems there are so deep and intractable that no amount of hand wringing and aid will solve much at all.

When it comes to human rights, sure, I care about them. However, what precisely does this entail? How do we have human rights, and from where do they come? Well, it is fairly obvious that if you are living in a state of anarchy, there can be no human rights. Sure, you might be living in the Congolese jungles, drawing up lists of woolly-minded "rights", however when that 12 year old gunman walks over and empties a clip in your chest, no amount of "Rights of Man" will make a difference.

Clearly, you can only have rights if you have law, and you will only have law when the state has a monopoly on force. From there, a benign state can concede human rights to a populace, trading the right to own property contingent on the duty to pay tax, among other things, knowing these rights now have substance. A right becomes a right only when it is law. That is why I get so annoyed when rowdy student protestors march through the streets claiming the "right to a free education". Actually, that's a demand, not a right.

You will never improve human rights until law is restored in a country, thus a logical conclusion from this would be that the best form of foreign aid comes in the form of military support (assuming that support is designed to be law-making rather than breaking). This is the default position of a skeptical-realist. The problem is that it is so difficult to bring law and order to the world, because there is just so little territory on which the rule of law actually prevails.

Yet when one is faced by stories like this one, a burning anger gradually spreads through one's system; a gnashing rage evolves at the complete impotence of the rich and powerful for not doing more to stop it. One tightens one's hold on the mouse to breaking point, cursing the computer for informing you of such atrocities.

Responsible for much of the violence is Zimbabwe's National Youth Service - what the government calls a peace corps designed to lift youngsters out of poverty, but what its former members describe as ruling Zanu-PF party military camps of teenagers being taught to beat, rape and kill.

"They used to give us beer and drugs and told us we were going to destroy farms. Also, people who were MDC were not allowed to buy food from the shops, but Zanu-PF were allowed food when they showed their card," said Andrew Moyo, also 19.

They're notorious in the country as the "green bombers" after the uniforms they wear and the chaos that follows in their wake.

Themba Ndlovu is 22, he said they were promised money, jobs and land, but instead they were forced to attack people and burn down farms - they received nothing and were told if they ran away they would be killed.

"We used crowbars and firearms," he said. "I have not killed, but I have raped. I raped a 12 year old girl. We have attacked people from the MDC party - many people. I need to change my life - that is why I ran away from Zimbabwe.

This is completely outrageous. Clearly if the rule of law dissolves to a certain point in Zimbabwe, anarchy will spill over the borders of neighbouring countries. We The Chosen Ones (westerners with big killing machines) ought to start planning for how we are going to bring this Mugabe S.O.B before some kind of hanging judge. We can do it. We have the technology.

However, this is also the point where one lapses back into a realist sobriety.
Do what, exactly? How can we stop sovereign states from oppressing their own people (which quite a lot of them seem to like doing) without causing even greater anarchy? What options do we have to destroy that despot Mugabe.

I can think of about three:

1) We gather a coalition of Anglo and African states and invade Zimbabwe with the express purpose of regime change. This isn't an entirely crazy idea, given that Zimbabwe could start behaving in ways that threaten the sovereignty of other states. When regimes become so nutty that they send sorties to neighbouring countries you know it's time to make some changes. Unfortunately, regime-change does not necessarily imply greater law and order. It may indeed mean less, should the indigenous population not cooperate and the occupying armies give the game up. Conquered peoples often behave irrationally when they are occupied anyway. Something about personal pride.

2) We fund some Zimbabwean contras. This could be fairly easy. There is a Movement for Democratic Change, and many of their members certainly aren't saints. What we could do is funnel some semi-automatics, sniper rifes, grenade-launchers, mortars and other weaponry to the opposition to create a local rebellion against Mugabe. The problem here is obvious. Contras are not always the ideal way to go. A slow-drip guerilla insurgency could seriously undermine the government and force it to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, when you have the country split in half, it becomes a little tough to move food, water and fuel around. Also, having everyone hiding weapons will not be good when you get the country back to democratic elections.

3) Cut off all aid to Zimbabwe. This won't work either. Aid/sanctions etc are always a toughie in foreign policy. Basically neither work. The problem to start with is a lack of law, not a lack of supplies. Thus with no rule of law, aid tends to be distributed in a politicised fashion (for example, Mugabe will not direct food to districts that voted for the MDC), which is never good. Unfortunately, sanctions will be used as a political football by a despot who never really cared for his subjects anyway. So what if half the country starves to death?

Therefore, faced with no particularly good ideas, and no real-politic reason for regime-changing Zimbabwe, the rest of the world will do nothing. This reinforces the typical Republican-style isolationist perspective that I articulated before. Perhaps we will take out Zimbabwe eventually, but it can be guaranteed that this will not happen until the situation begins to threaten neighbouring countries like Zambia and South Africa. One would hope we deal with it sooner rather than later.

A coalition of convenience?

Andrew Sullivan has some delicious commentary on where he thinks the Left is going...right into the arms of Allah! (Norm Geras got the ball rolling)

It's now that we can see what really lay behind the activist core of the "peace movement": not peace but hatred of the West; not democracy, but alliance with dictators, terrorists and Islamo-fascism. Here's a prediction: the fledgling links now forged between left-wing anti-war campaigners and Islamo-fascism will get stronger in the years ahead. The anti-globalization far left has nowhere else to go. Fanatical political Islam provides them with an over-arching structure for the loathing of the West. Now that Marxism is dead and post-modernism has shown itself inept as a basis for a real political movement, Islam will fill the void.

I've thought about writing a major essay on the topic, but didn't get around to it. However, I have noticed around campus and in tutorials a tendency for Lefties to condemn Christianity to the rafters, while white-washing Islam at every opportunity. I never realised why until I reflected on that notorious day when Osama and his boys got their show on the road. There is substance to what Sullivan predicts - the radical left and radical Islamists will grow ever closer and develop very intimate political links in the next few years. Expect the Greens to become increasingly hysterical as they force-feed themselves a diet of hate propaganda - harvested in Mecca, baked in Beirut and served up by those renowned connoiseurs in Lakemba, Sydney!

A Marxist case for war

Moral considerations have their place in foreign policy, as even the most cold-headed realist should be able to admit from time to time. Hence a reluctant Australian government can swim with the tide of public opinion to, ever so gradually, come round to a position of supporting an independent East Timor. And further, a coalition of Anglo-Celtic nations can charge into a despot's fiefdom and put him out of job, and his sons into the company of Lucifer.

Some of us didn't actually emphasise that side of the War in Iraq so much, because, while humanitarian intervention is a good thing from time to time, does anyone seriously want to do it more than once every couple of years? Iraq was a real-politic action that happened to coincide with the removal of one of the most despicable dictators going around (although you wouldn't know it if you've been attending your university tutorials these days). Thus from time to time you may find a humanitarian spin-off from real-politic actions. One example is Iraq, which we'll go into later.

An earlier example is Cambodia. Although the UK and US did support the Khmer Rouge diplomatically at the UN (again, for real-politic reasons to do with the China/Soviet balance) post-1979, does anyone seriously regret the fact that the Vietnamese got quite fed up with those nutter Maoists skipping the border and killing their villagers, and decided to charge into Cambodia and give Pol Pot a good pounding. They ended Pol Pot's career in three weeks. Indeed the young half-blind Khmer Rouge defector, Hun Sen, who was installed in the 1979 invasion by the Vietnamese junta, is still Prime Minister today. Despite the corruption and state violence, does anyone believe it comes close to the loony barking mad Pol Pot? (actually, come to think of it, Noam Chomsky probably does) Is there anyone out there who will compare a modest economic performance and occasional killing of political opponents with that lunatic attempt to uproot the entire foundations of Cambodian society, thus unleashing a tidal wave of chaos and genocide the world has seldom seen?

I bet Vietnam didn't worry about "collateral damage" when they went into Cambodia, nor would they have cared if the quagmire lobby started piping up in defense of Pol Pot. They fight like maniacs. Yet Vietnam did not invade Cambodia to liberate the Cambodian people. They invaded because they were damned pissed off at Cambodian terrorist attacks in the South. The Vietnamese invaded and set up the Cambodian People's Party, under the leadership of Hun Sen, in order to create a Vietnamese ally to their west. Thus Vietnam has no enemies at its borders. These sorts of geopolitical concerns are completely legitimate and common to all governments, regardless of culture. Yet the exact same model of geo-political gain/humanitarian spin-off can be applied to US actions such as Iraq without any proportionality on the part of the critics of the Anglo-west. I bet there were no anti-war marches back in '79.

What bizarre twist of logic can produce such distortions - Vietnam good/US bad?
However, I've noticed that there are plenty of figures on the Left who do not buy into the Leftwing "pacifism" (and occasional outright fifth-columnism) that has become prevalent today. Some examples off the top of my head are Norman Hanscombe, Chris Hitchens, Albert Langer and Norman Geras. All were anti-Vietnam war activists, yet all came out to a greater or lesser degree in favour of the US-led attack on Iraq.

I will deal with Norman Geras, as I've just been given his link by Tim Dymond (another of the anti-Vietnam/pro-Iraq brigade). Geras is a British Marxist who wrote a fairly compelling pro-war essay on Iraq.

Is there then, today, a right of humanitarian intervention under international law? The question is disputed. Some authorities argue that the UN Charter rules it out absolutely. War is only permissible in self-defence. However, others see a contradiction between this reading of the Charter and the Charter's underwriting of binding human rights norms. Partly because the matter is disputed, I will not here base myself on a legal right of humanitarian intervention. I will simply say that, irrespective of the state of international law, in extreme enough circumstances there is a moral right of humanitarian intervention. This is why what the Vietnamese did in Cambodia to remove Pol Pot should have been supported at the time, the state of international law notwithstanding, and ditto for the removal of Idi Amin by the Tanzanians. Likewise, with regard to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq: it was a case crying out for support for an intervention to bring the regime finally to an end.

It is, in any event, such realities - the brutalizing and murder by the Baathist regime of its own nationals to the tune of tens upon tens, upon more tens, of thousands of deaths - that the recent war has brought to an end. It should have been supported for this reason, irrespective of the reasons (concerning WMD) that George Bush and Tony Blair put up front themselves; though it is disingenuous of the war's critics to speak now as if the humanitarian case for war formed no part of the public rationale of the Coalition, since it was clearly articulated by both Bush and Blair more than once.

Anyway, have a look at old Norm. While you're at it, check out LastSuperPower.net. As Pamela Bone pondered, can the hypocrites be right this time?

Norman Hanscombe

ALP life member, Norman Hanscombe, has his own blog up and running at the ever-burgeoning Gravett Empire. A valued comment-poster over at Truth, Liberty and an Akubra, Norman has turned some of his comments into fine essays.

This short essay on Iraq has particular utility.

Let’s face the facts. Baghdad has not settled down as smoothly as President Bush would have liked. Despite the amazingly rapid disintegration of Saddam’s forces, turmoil still prevails. No one other than the more nutty fringes of the extreme left --- certainly no serious commentator --- denies that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are anything but glad to see their former brutal dictator gone. Why is this the case? Perhaps a brief look at a few aspects of Saddam’s regime will provide the answer.

...

It has been fashionable, in some quarters at least, to distract attention from Saddam’s genocidal policies, by pretending responsibility for the death of so many Iraqi children during the 13 years of U.N. sanctions, lay primarily with the United Nations, or --- even more grotesquely --- with the United States. It helped those with a pathological hatred of “America” to feel justified in rejecting the need to analyse the evidence more rationally.

Surprisingly, some still pretend Saddam’s cruel misuse of dead babies to present the world a fraud didn’t “really” occur. Should you encounter such blinkered apologists for his regime, suggest they read the Newsday Inc. report of 23/5/03, quoting Iraqi Hospital Chief Resident, Dr Hussein Shihab, forced to perpetrate the cruel hoax. “We had the ability to get all the drugs we needed. Instead of that, Saddam Hussein spent all the money on his military force and put all the blame on the U.S.” And “Yes, of course the sanctions hurt; but not too much --- he spent it on his palaces.”

Not bad, and it was good to see Norman touch on one of his favourite themes - Vietnam:

Critics of the U.S. are rarely willing to argue openly that Saddam should have been supported. That would be too embarrassing. Instead, they tend to argue, “He was an evil man, of course, but ----.”

Let’s look briefly at a few of the more frequently proffered“buts”: ---

...

“But the U.S. has done terrible things in the past”. As someone who spent many years organising against the Viet Nam War [well before it became fashionable to do so] and lecturing on U.S. involvement in Latin America, I’d agree; but it’s nothing more than a desperate red herring. It has emotional appeal, of course; but this sort of “argument” is so badly flawed logically, that normally it’s used only as a last resort, when you need to distract attention from the inherent weakness of your case.

I urge all loyal akubras to find Norman a place on your blogroll.

The Multicult: part II

That Mardi Gras essay was a sop to the more sober readers around here, thus it is time to rev up on the Coulter gauge on some kind of divisive issue. Can anyone guess which issue is on my mind? (Go and give Slatts a big pat on the back for finding an article titled "The Multicultural Thought Police" before I did)

Only two decades ago, the central principle of anti-racism was that all individuals in our society should be treated equally, regardless of ethnic origin or religion. Yet through multiculturalism, the malign ideological spawn of anti-discrimination, we have moved far away from that stance. We are now told that, in the name of ‘celebrating diversity’, we must respect every aspect of every culture in our midst. Not only must we act correctly in word and deed, but, more importantly, we must also be trained to harbour no negative thoughts about the behaviour of any other ethnic group.

This outlook is utterly inimical to personal freedom and equality before the law, the very pillars of our civilisation. Far from ignoring racial differences in the search for harmony, it actually seeks to emphasise them. Such an attitude was summed up by the 1999 report of Sir William Macpherson into the death of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence: ‘Colour-blind policing must be outlawed. The police must deliver a service which recognises the different experiences, perceptions and needs of a diverse society.’

The hysterical guilt-tripping that Macpherson inspired was matched last week by the furore over the BBC programme about a handful of racist police recruits in Manchester and North Wales. Once more we heard the accusations that the British police was riddled with ‘institutionalised racism’. Adopting the quasi-religious tone that is characteristic of the multicultural brigade, the Observer described racism as an ‘endemic evil’ within the police.

....

What I find nauseating are the double standards at work. Brutish conduct in private by a few officers is hailed by the media and the government as chillingly representative of the entire police force — hence the need for a wholesale change in attitudes. At the same time, we are constantly warned against applying any generalisations to the Islamic or black communities. We must not think that Muslim clerics, pouring out their murderous hatred of the West and Judaism, have anything to do with the overwhelming majority of moderate Muslims. Similarly, we must not be trapped into the dangerous fallacy that gun violence, drug-dealing and serial fatherhood are somehow prevalent among young African-Caribbean men.

Liberal-minded, diversity-loving types with particularly weak stomachs are required to read the entire article.

Some thoughts on the Mardi Gras

Yesterday my significant other and I traveled down to Murray Street to take a look at the Perth Mardi Gras for the first time. I'd attended the official Pride launch a few weeks earlier, and had been invited to march in previous Mardi Gras, but for whatever reason could not make it until this year.

Despite what much of this website would imply, I'm not one of the stodgy young fogey types who would avoid the gay scene like the plague. Many a happy night has been spent down at Connections and other such bars among friends who, like you and I, desire only to get ahead in the world and do well for themselves and their loved ones.

I am not too aware of the history of the Mardi Gras (or Pride Parade, as it is often known), but have been told that it arose from a political movement for equal treatment going back some decades. Whether or not this is due to the popularity of the Mardi Gras, this movement for tolerance has been largely successful, with governments across Australia removing laws piecemeal that discriminate on the grounds of sexuality. While there are residual elements who would seek to erect wall after wall between the mainstream and the "misfits", a gradual awakening in Australian society from a reactionary past can be observed, with greater tolerance (which does not necessarily imply acceptance or even approval) for particular lifestyles seemingly the rule rather than the exception.

The difference between tolerance and approval is the key here: for example this blogger doesn't particularly approve of the idea of gay marriage (essentially because there no reason to change the overall nature of what was supposed to be heterosexual institution), however, such a practice can still be tolerated without major concern. The difference between disapproval and intolerance is enormous, thus there is no logical leap of faith to take here. Equally, it can be said that this blog does not approve of the Islamic religion, however, that does not imply a refusal to tolerate religious diversity within Australia. Does anyone seriously believe that disapproving of a political party such as the ALP necessarily implies a desire to bar it completely? Of course not.

Yet so unreasoned has been the dialogue on culture and sexuality in Australia that courage is required to take an approach to diversity that is both conservative and tolerant, without attracting at least some volume of abuse, particularly in the universities and student unions. The cries of "homophobia" and "racism" over any trivial dissent from the intellectual orthodoxy at fora such as student union conferences must be seen to be believed.

Happily, the Mardi Gras attracts a fairly broad-minded cross-section of society into the fold. It is possible to defend the identity and humanity of one's friends or family (often under the parent/church banner) without actually approving of their lifestyle (as I know one particular loving Catholic family has tolerated, but not approved, of their fifth son’s evolving sexuality). And equally, as politics is both a conviction and a way of life for some, it is possible to find Left-leaning parents tolerating (although with teeth clenched) the activities of increasingly Toryish offspring who may not buy into the same fashions that defined the preceding generation.

It was pleasing to see a multi-denominational church involvement in a controversial parade. This could be interpreted in one of two ways. Firstly, one could note in contrast an apparent absence of the other monotheistic religions at the Mardi Gras, both in the parade and at the sidelines (to the extent that physical appearances can correlate with faith). For all the proselytizing of the virtues of multiculturalism and diversity, particularly among the Islamic community, there appeared to be virtually no Islamic support for the most personal and perhaps commonest form of diversity to be found in the west – sexual diversity. Secondly, it may be argued that this is precisely due to the decline and decadence of the churches, such that they may be crossing the line between loving the sinners and loving the sin. However, while the public pronouncements of some church leaders are at times hard to distinguish from press releases of leftish political parties, it could also be said that, at some level, a greater effort not to leave the sinners shunned and isolated for their sins is being made by the calmer heads of the Christian flock.

Love the sinner but not the sin is a fair description of my thoughts on sexuality. While there is some theological debate as to whether homosexuality is indeed a sin, this is not the central issue of sexuality and identity, today. We are all by definition sinful, so why target any particular group of sinners? More important is the ability to criticize some of the more dubious by-products of gay culture, without having to call into question one’s own tolerance on the matter of sexuality as a whole. Whether it is fashionable to admit this or not, from anecdotal experience one can point to an apparent indifference among elements of the gay culture (although this is by no means limited to gays only) to prudence and modesty in one’s personal conduct. Some aspects and branches of gay culture are actually defined by excess, particularly among those in drag. Rather than indulging in occasional boozing and roistering like the rest of us, the danger can evolve where clearly abnormal and even harmful behaviour becomes an identity in itself. How can this possibly be “liberating”? Again, this all comes down to the behaviour of individuals and sub-cultures, but to deny that such a tendency exists (and to in turn deny the potentially harmful social effects) does not help the majority of people who may seek integration within society.

It is hoped that discourse on sexuality in a cultural context can mature beyond the overheated and assertive claims by the gay community on one hand, and the guilt-edged defensiveness of tolerant heterosexuals on the other. This is not always the fault of the two parties. One can point an accusatory finger at the oft-hypocritical feminist third party for their interventions in sexual politics over the past few decades. Does anyone seriously believe that the rules of “come-ons” apply to straight males as fairly as they do to gay males? Having attended two National Union of Students conferences (and hence being lectured on the “rules of engagement” numerous times), it is clear that heterosexual men are treading a fine line when they seek to fulfill their biological urgings, yet for some reason gay men are not expected to have any restraint with each other whatsoever. The assumption is that women “are never up for it” yet gay men “have no choice”. If you’re gay and you don’t appreciate unwanted advances, don’t expect your sisterly comrades to defend you. It is always amusing to observe a civil war between the identity groupies especially when cultural relativists aren’t in the firing line for once. In any case, calm and reason are required to discuss and explore human sexuality (for which people need not feel any guilt) openly without using the issue as a cultural and political football of the extremists. As the barriers of anti-gay discrimination are brought tumbling down, it would be folly to erect a gay exceptionalism that disallows criticism or thought-crimes that may lead one to contradict the commandments of “progressive” orthodoxy.

In light of these qualifications, which are not driven by the slightest malice, it was a great pleasure to be a minor part of the 2003 Pride Parade, both the official launch and in attendance at the parade proper. In the interest of promoting greater understanding of sexual diversity, I wish all Pride participants the very best.